Respect
by Dala1
Summary: They aren't ordinary, either one of them. (AnamariaxMarty)


(standard disclaimer applies)

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The crew Gibbs finds for Jack Sparrow is a ragtag bunch and they know it. They're capable sailors, sure enough, but they're still the ones no other captain will take aboard. Beggars can't afford to be choosers, though, and anyway Anamaria has been acquainted with Sparrow long enough to know that he looks at people with a different kind of eye than most. When they've taken the _Pearl_ back, he offers them all a continuing position. In Tortuga a few leave to try their luck elsewhere, but most stay, observing as Jack takes on more men. Pirates are natural gossips and the story has spread with the quick force of a typhoon. Now he has his pick of brave men, strong men, clever men. He passes over the dangerously ambitious, the ones with storied histories of violence, and the red-eyed opium addicts. Anamaria is heartened by this, because she's been on many a ship crewed by bad men, seen how quickly it can go wrong. So has Jack, she supposes - one more reason she's interested in sticking around a bit longer.  
  
The new arrivals are not a bad sort, but once they're at sea, some sort of pecking order must be established or they'll all drive each other mad. Jack mostly lets them settle their differences amongst themselves, since they rarely come to blows. He watches, more than most of the crew realizes, but he doesn't mix as once he might have done. The original crew serves as the extension of his hand, loyal to his word and quick to dole out their own punishments for injustice. They depend on one another as much as any of them dares, and Jack depends on them to keep him informed of shifts in the crew's mood as well as maintaining general peace.  
  
So she's surprised to realize, after several months, that Marty doesn't laugh so easily at Gibbs' randy stories, doesn't offer to mediate when Matelot and Duncan have one of their spats, no longer whittles gifts for Cotton to send to his wife and children In fact, she's hard-pressed to remember if she spied him on any of their jaunts in port, pig roasts on the beach, or the times they just sit around on deck and drink. He might not be so easy to spot as most, but he's one of them, after all.  
  
Under normal circumstances, their beady-eyed captain might've noticed. But a pirate courting a commodore can hardly be called normal circumstances, so she understands if Jack is a bit preoccupied. At least he's stopped falling into a reverie at the wheel; nearly wrecking his precious ship on a reef was enough to cure him of that nonsense. Also finally getting to bugger the man, but Anamaria likes to pretend the captain's cabin exists in a soundless bubble so she can't really hear the things she thinks she's hearing.  
  
In any case, she'd never shame Marty by asking after him behind his back, so she decides to hold her tongue and keep her eyes open. It takes a few days before she catches them: looks passed between men when Marty walks by, sniggers when he climbs the rigging, elbows nudging ribs with mean, slit-eyed grins. None of their group notices, and Marty never seems to react except to turn away.  
  
She wants badly to thump the jokers, but he is proud and wouldn't thank her for it. Instead she plants herself in his path often, nagging him about this sail or that cannon, criticizing his fish stew, badgering him about leaving too much pulp when he eats oranges. She _means_ to say nice things, she really does, but her skills are a little rusty. And Marty never seems to take offense, doesn't argue with her as frequently as the men do. When he does, it's always for a reason, never simply because she's The Woman and he feels he must. He becomes a snarling devilment in battle, but otherwise he's an easygoing fellow. Doesn't feel the need the fill a silence like Jack or Gibbs. Cotton's the same way, difference of course being that he's no choice in the matter. Marty's just a quiet sort. And like her, he's had to work three times as hard to prove that he's as good as a single ordinary man.  
  
They're not ordinary, either one of them. And she's in one of those rare moments when she can be pleased with that instead of lamenting it.  
  
"'S good that you're here," he remarks one evening. They've had a string of lucky Spanish raids recently and the spirits on board are high. The captain's even broken out his best rum on account of he's managed to capture the commodore again. Marty and Anamaria have retreated from the revelers to put their backs against the gunwale and watch for falling stars, sharing a bottle like they often do.  
  
She squints at a funny blue-tinted glimmer as she says, "Yeah?"  
  
"Mmhmm," Marty replies with a nod. "Because of me bein' what I am. Because you're the only one in the entire crew to look past that."  
  
Anamaria stops looking at the sky and looks at the man beside her instead. "'Cause I know it doesn't matter," she says quietly. "Like you know it about me."  
  
Marty smiles that warm, fierce smile of his, blue eyes silvered by moonlight. She's slouched down and he's sitting straight, so that he doesn't have to stretch his neck to meet her gaze squarely. She closes her eyes when he kisses her, opens them again when he sinks his hands into her hair and her fingers close on the taut muscles of his arm, just in time to see her blue star leap from the heavens.

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End file.
